Published in 2017 by Awst Press, Bronzeville at Night: 1949, is a compilation of blues poems set in 1949. They depict fictionalized characters from The Archibald J. Motley painting Bronzeville at Night,
The poem "2 Doors" is a response to my research on cooks and slavery in America. It was published in the anthology Through This Door: Wisconsin in Poems, which was edited by Margaret Rozga and Angela Trudell Vasquez. Released in the fall of 2020, the anthology is an Art Night Books publication.
Click this link for a review by Jim Higgins in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Fresia McKee writes: “The section, “3: A Rectangle,” of Vida Cross’s three-sectioned poem subversively titled “2 Doors” instructs readers to, “Draw 2 lines that are horizontal//Connect 2 lines that are vertical on each end//Trap something in the middle.” Yes! Wooden door, paper door, door of ink. A drawn line is the smallest door of all.
Published by Akashic Books in 2019, the short story collection Milwaukee Noir was edited by Tim Hennessy and features the story “All Dressed in Red.”
Editor Hennessy acknowledges that in the midst of growing gentrification, Milwaukee remains “among the most segregated and impoverished big cities in the country.” Many of his entries document that legacy with anger and sadness. Vida Cross’ “All Dressed in Red” and Derrick Harriell’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” show the ugliness that flares up when people try to cross the borders created by a generation of redlining. In Frank Wheeler Jr.’s “Transit Complaint Box,” a veteran transit cop teaches a rookie what it means to be a racist. Youngsters develop strategies to deal with a trauma at an integrated public school in James E. Causey’s “The Clem.” Matthew J. Prigge shows what happens to a neighborhood when the money moves on in “3rd Street Waltz.” A young thief makes a shocking discovery in Valerie Laken’s heartbreaking “Runoff.” Other stories show the dark side of revitalization. A middle-class couple copes with the disappearance of their child in Mary Thorson’s “Wonderland.” A Brooklyn visitor’s relationship with a young local woman turns ugly in Reed Farrel Coleman’s “Summerfest ’76.” In “Friendship,” Jane Hamilton shows the unexpected consequences of a New York couple’s move to a historic Milwaukee town house. And not one but two stories document the perils of lawn care: Christi Clancy’s “’Mocking Season” and Nick Petrie’s “The Neighbor.”
A nod to Milwaukee’s blue-collar heritage, a frank look at racial disharmony, and a peek at the future make Hennessy’s collection a find for fans of urban noir.
Workshopped at Cave Canem, ‘The Quilt Maker’ can also be found in my book, Bronzeville at Night: 1949. This poem was included in The Cave Canem Anthology XII, published by Aquarius Press in 2012.
2009 at Cave Canem with fellow poets Glenn North, L. Lamar Wilson, Elizabeth Butler and Vida Cross
Pictured: Vida Cross, Elizabeth Alexander and Eureka L. Pickett
The poem 'The Night' can be found in my book, Bronzeville at Night: 1949. This anthology, Creativity and Constraint (edited by Heather Tosteson, Charles D. Brockett, Kerry Langan, and Michele Markarian), is a Wising Up Anthology published in 2014 by Wising Up Press.
It is the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s first major publication, a project completed in collaboration with two of our city’s finest publishers: After Hours Press and Third World Press.
Chicago’s history and culture vibrate through these pages.
“It is the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame’s first major publication, a project done in collaboration with two of our city’s finest publishers, After Hours Press and Third World Press.”
